PepsiCo expert advice: Quick commerce and rapid delivery

PepsiCo’s e-commerce experts cast an eye over the advent of quick commerce and rapid delivery

How has the explosion of quick commerce changed the B2B space?

The pandemic has massively accelerated the growth of quick commerce. Aggregators such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo dominate the restaurant delivery space, but recently there has been a big influx of ultra-fast players into the UK market following the 10-1 philosophy (groceries in under 10 minutes with 1 click). 

Many of these quick-commerce players are ordering their stock from wholesalers or direct-to-consumer platforms to their dark stores, therefore, this shift has resulted in new customers entering the wholesale market who are looking for agility in their orders – quick and frequent deliveries – and a different product range than traditional grocers.

In what ways should wholesalers be adapting to this?

The explosion of quick commerce has meant both retailers and end consumers expect their grocery deliveries quicker than ever. Wholesalers need to adapt to meet this changing customer demand through offering flexible and same-day delivery services to stand out from the competition. 

For those wholesalers who have a retail part to their business, signing up their retail stores to rapid delivery and quick-commerce platforms could have a massive impact on their sales – based on a major rapid-delivery player’s 2020 data, a convenience store could make, on average, £4,950 more per month from being signed up to a rapid-delivery platform, with top-performing stores making more than £100k extra per month from being signed up.

What are the key considerations wholesalers need to have in this space?

To meet changing consumer demands, wholesalers should invest in their digital platforms to offer a seamless customer experience for shopping while also investing in their supply chain capability to offer
a quick and efficient delivery service that differentiates them from the competition.
To take it a step further, larger wholesalers could look to partner with one of these new quick-commerce players to exclusively supply grocery products to their dark stores to tap into this ultra-fast delivery trend.

Are there any shining examples of best practice you’re already seeing?

With crisps and snacks being one of the most crucial categories for the rapid-delivery channel, we’ve seen more than 300% growth in this space in the past year alone. More than 3,000 convenience stores are listed on Deliveroo, which is fuelling this growth, alongside new ultra-fast delivery players entering the market – Getir, Gorillas, Flink and Zapp were some of the most downloaded apps for customers throughout 2021.

From a partnership perspective, new quick-commerce player Gorillas has recently announced a new partnership with Tesco to act as a micro-fulfilment centre, showing that quick-commerce players are interested in forming strategic partnerships with larger grocery suppliers to ensure quick delivery of products to customers – so one for the larger wholesalers to consider. 

It’s fair to say that quick commerce is seeing a massive period of growth and is here to
stay, so the more wholesalers can integrate themselves into this space through investing in their digital customer experience and quick delivery, the more likely it is they will win in the market.

PepsiCo’s expert panel was made up of Impulse Digital Manager, Kevin Rhodes; Category Development Manager, Justine Mudde; and Rapid Deliver Insights Manager, Holly Stephenson.